Fashion photographer Korina Leka dies – WWD

Corinna Leka, a fashion photographer who collaborated with her husband Dan for decades, has died at the age of 75.

She had some discomfort and was at Nuvan’s Health Vassar Brothers Medical Center in Poughkeepsie, New York, when she died Tuesday, her son Sacha said.

Tax plans have yet to be discussed.

Since the 80s, Leicas can be found in photographers’ pits at the end of runways in New York and other fashion capitals. Her self-taught husband was the first to enter the field. At the beginning of her career, Korina Leka worked for the New York Times, but most of her work is spent shoulder to shoulder with her husband. He declined to comment until later.

For many of the fashion crowd, Lexus was an inseparable mix. According to her daughter, who provides the public face of the family business, she is “more patient and more saintly. Before starting a career in magazine publishing, Sacha Leka, who is now deputy editor of Rolling Stone, worked hard to support his parents with amazing fashion weeks.

That close-up showcased their respective styles as well as their divide-and-conquer approach, as the husband-and-wife team posed in different spots at the end of the designer’s runway. Like other photographers, they prefer to overshoot to cover everything. Sometimes one focuses on a full runway shot, while the other zooms in on accessories or other details.

Such strict settlements and unity would be too much for many couples, but not for them. “Why did the couple have a good marriage for 53 or 54 years?” asked their son. If you had asked, the answer would have been the same. It was really an extension of life and a way of working. They loved what they did. Each of them had their own strengths and were very balanced with each other.

Born in Berkeley, California to a father who was in the foreign service and an artistic and intellectual mother, Corina Leca, she had two sisters. Growing up, the family lived in various cities, including Washington DC and Bangkok due to her father’s role.

When she was young, she went to Romania to visit her one sister who was there at the time. During the trip, she met her future husband, who was born in the country. The couple were so smitten when they met, they both had a brief courtship. At that time, Dan Leka played in the famous Bulgarian band Choral. Years later, when the couple’s twins, Sacha and Samantha, were born in a London hospital (ranked alongside Bucharest for quality care), Dan Leca received the news of their arrival while backstage.

At the beginning of their marriage, the Lecas lived in Rome for a long time before settling down in the US, in Queens, New York. Italian was one of the languages ​​spoken by the multilingual couple. Shooting fashion runways around the world, they were part of a collective of hundreds of photographers who specialized in this type of coverage and flocked from city to city. Influencers and bloggers were good at mass media before they became popular. “It was a very unique and special fashion plane photographers,” said Sacha Leka.

Their level of commitment was very targeted and it shows that the couple are not hired to hit the runway regularly, because those – sometimes unknown – designers believe in the work they do. “Often their presence is an indication that something special is going on. [there]” said Sacha Leka. “They knew the industry very well. I have always been amazed at how well you can navigate the industry. I think that’s why they’ve lasted so long. [in it]He said.

After tweaking their runway photos here and there, it seems like runway photography should be that simple, but it’s not. What surprised him was “how rare it would be for his parents to even look at him for a moment,” and he said his mother had the ability to frame the object, whether it was a model gesture or how she was asked to gesture. head. “Sometimes this makes the difference between a model on the runway and a really beautiful photograph that can stand on its own.”

Accustomed to keeping her energy level at work, Corinna Leca still proved her point by reading current affairs, fashion trends and voraciously, Agatha Christie and Patricia Cornwell mysteries were her favorites. Along with maintaining an up-to-the-minute fashion sense, she was also open to new music. A few years ago, she attended a punk music festival in the woods of upstate New York with her daughter and “had a blast.

Predeceased by her two sisters, Leka is survived by her husband and son, a director and producer as well as a partner in Polo Grounds Films.